nor is there any absolute, common universal that exists outside the mind simply by virtue of being absolute. Rather, the intellect abstracts from resembling things a shared element, and that is the universal. Within the mind it functions as a universal in that it is truly predicable of determinate particulars and corresponds to them as a general meaning corresponds to its instances; yet in itself it is particular, meaning that, inside the mind, it is an attribute of the mind and a state that inheres in it, and whatever inheres in a determinate particular is, a fortiori, determinate and particular. It is called universal only insofar as it matches the various similar particulars.

Hence, when one says “human,” the notion has an existence in external realities, an existence in minds, an existence on the tongue, and an existence at the tip of the pen—a concrete, cognitive, verbal, and written existence. In the intellect there is an unrestricted, general meaning that encompasses the individuals, whether by collective inclusion or by substitution. That meaning is expressed by a word, namely “human,” and by its written form; and that word, in turn, has a written sign that points to it—the written letters of the word “human.” Thus we have both the word and the meaning.

When it is said that the universal is “total,” “general,” or “absolute,” and the like, that is only from the angle of its encompassing the existing individuals, embracing them, and signifying them. Otherwise, it is nothing but one specific written mark and one specific spoken word. With this clarification, the objections that Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Razi (1) and others raise against the logicians at this point fall away.

The individuals that exist outside the mind—two human beings, for instance—do resemble and match one another in certain respects: they are alike in humanity, that is, the humanity found in this one